


The memory of touch (aka Kon>Gillette)

by winterysomnium



Category: DCU - Comicverse
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-11
Updated: 2013-01-11
Packaged: 2017-11-25 03:46:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,606
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/634785
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/winterysomnium/pseuds/winterysomnium
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kon offers to give Tim a shave.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The memory of touch (aka Kon>Gillette)

**Author's Note:**

> A birthday story for Miss Meg. The second title belongs to varebanos (written with her permission of course).

For Kon, trust is dropping something brittle into his palms. It’s placing frail bones between the bulk of his forearms, into the ellipsis of his lungs and elbows; it’s putting human heartbeats next to his own, it’s listening to the copies of ancient songs, of the rhythm that stays. 

Trust is grazing the underside of someone’s jaw, trailing into the dip of their neck, undressing their collars, exposing the bareness of their skin, with dry fingers and steady wrists and crafted shards of metal, fatal in angles.

Trust is when the duplicated tune, the counted rhythm, the looped song of the heartbeat – doesn’t change.

(Doesn’t play through instincts; through innate fear.)

Tim keeps his head tipped back, swallows against Kon’s thumb, his hair pinned to the bony outskirts of his skull, thin clips withholding gravity; the lazy, afternoon heat soggy between him and his shirt, old cotton and fresh scents, graze of metal.

(But – rewind, Kon. Rewind.)

Sleeping through lunch hour and the rush of hunger is Tim’s weekend usual, stumbling with covers curled at his ankles and tugging on closed curtains heavy with light an unwanted ritual, pieces of habits tucked behind the corners of his consciousness, they ricochet through his day. 

He drinks coffee, he kisses Kon, he drops onto their couch and writes in empty squares that he fills with thoughts, places the day across the expanse of his lungs and: there are things he likes and things he _doesn’t_ about mornings, not mornings like these. About waking with split lips and tired fingers, soaked in washed off soap yet gritty with the city’s dust, about Conner’s towel drying beside his hip while he brushes his teeth, scrubbing until the foam turns pink, things he does and doesn’t like about Bruce’s frowns on his eyebrows, about his Dad’s raise of chin he sees through his own.

(There are things that he can’t decide on.) 

Conner knocks, turns the doorknob like a ghost and falls into Tim’s back, warm like summer, heated like the roads Tim bled on when he fell from his bike as a boy, knees and palms disinfected inside his home’s cold kitchen, paler for weeks, picked on until it bled again as he waited for his restlessness to settle, his parents to sleep, skin numb and stained.

(Childhood places stretched over bones; scars without intent. There still are some on him.   
Hidden, barely visible through those that were supposed to hurt.) 

Kon slowly lifts most of his weight from the sculpture of Tim’s skeleton, connects his mouth with Tim’s slumped, cotton shoulder and waits, for a scrub or two. 

“Let me do something for you,” he finally says as Tim wipes his mouth clean, Tim’s shirt damp where the words touch.

(He’s muffled, stuck between Tim’s and no space, a space that doesn’t echo but resonates through Tim’s bones, through his ears.)

“Is it another of yours “being nice to my boyfriend” days?” Tim asks, laughter what the vibration comes through at the end of his mouth as, what he shivered and curled his toes around, only a sliver, a trickle of a moment earlier. (It’s just a loud, articulated smile.) 

“Kind of,” Kon admits, silence in his fingertips as he holds Tim’s sides, whispers in his wrists as he folds. “I want you to relax. Sit down for a few minutes. Switch off.”

“While you do _what_?”

“Something that _you_ hate.”

“Fold the laundry?” Speaks Tim’s dumb, afternoon humor but it’s – uplifting to know. That Kon finds him funny. 

(Finds him across the thick and thin of continents, their milky clouds, Tim’s own sunken shores. It’s – nice.)

It’s safe.

“No.” 

Conner’s body stirs and so does the warmth in the inner spaces of Tim’s soul, in the outer shapes of his skin. Heat to heat. Chemistry to chemistry. (And _they_ are the solution.) 

“No,” Kon repeats, mouth no longer pressed to Tim’s back; open for speech, for articulation. “Shave you. I mean – your face. I mean – could I? I bought a razor and some nice shaving cream and you grumble about shaving every day a lot and yeah, so. Let me shave you? I’ve even trained for it.”

“You’ve – trained?”

“Yeah, I’ve. Asked Bart to help a super powered dude out.”

“How did you make him sit still?”

“I didn’t. Ended up using super speed on him. A bit of TTK here and there can do real wonders too.” Kon wiggles his fingers and Tim snorts, places his palms atop Kon’s knuckles, lines up their fingers. (It’s a closeness they can’t, won’t grow apart from.) 

“Why do I feel obliged to send him a “thank you for putting up with our crap” card attached to twenty boxes of pizza?”

“Probably because I accidentally shaved half of his hair off.”

“Conner!”

“Dude, _accidentally_! It grew back like five minutes later, okay?”

“Does Bart still like mushrooms and tomatoes with double cheese as his topping?”

“Look, to _me_ giving Bart a crappy haircut sounds _way better_ than chopping half of your face off, alright? Jesus, Batman would _kill_ me. Screw the no kill rule! I would be _the_ exception to it. Goes really well with the no metas rule too,” Kon grumbles, loud next to Tim’s ear. 

“Technically, _Darkseid_ was the exception -- you would be an extra.”

“Gee, you always know how to make me feel special, Rob.”

“Don’t I?” Tim grins, loosens up the achy tenseness in his spine, slumps farther into Kon and tips his head back until it bumps against Kon’s temple, a memory of touch.

(A memory of a sound, Tim sixteen and curved like a bow, thighs opened on the sides of Conner’s, his tights naked and pliant around his ankles, Conner’s erection pinned to the end of his spine, trapped under his tunic, fingers bruised from clutching the flat wood of their seat, mouth sore across his teeth.

Sixteen once, broken twice, fucked for the third time. 

Those were the months of Kon kissing him until the year ended. Months of them young and hard.   
Months of them quiet and stupid.

_Rob_ punches it all back to his chest.)

“Kon?”

“Mm?”

“I trust you not to give me your 90s haircut.”

“Is that Tim speak for _go for it, man but don’t screw up or you’re exiled to Couchville until my face grows back_?”

“In less words and with more finesse but – yeah.” Tim smiles, the right corner of his lips dragging upwards Kon’s cheek, a stir of skin, seconds of crossing out moods. 

(The tape skips.)

“Close your eyes.” is what Tim ends up listening to, dozing to unnecessary, compass creaks snapping around Conner’s feet, vacant pops of wood, the synthetic lullaby of their clothes.

His neck adapts to the obtuse, thick curve of the back of the couch, his legs tucked underneath the seat and – inside of everything that’s slack, that’s thawed and liquid, from his dozily achy muscles to the tranquil silhouettes of his thoughts, inside of it all – there’s a tense stutter. A hitch that corsets his ribs, a looseness that snaps, ruptures before faking falls, before sex and defusing explosives, before the loss of consciousness.

There’s something that anticipates and gasps through Tim’s mouth as the hot towel wraps around his jaw, covers the upper length of his throat, closes up across his forehead, and all he feels is mist and heat and the vague, dull push of Kon’s fingers where he secures the cloth, tells it to stay in tentative touches.

“Does that feel good?” he asks, holds a stubborn, sloppy corner down with his TTK. “I’ve read that a hot towel softens the hair. Makes it easier to shave.” 

Conner shrugs and Tim picks at the edge, swallows through the weight. “It feels hot.” 

Awkwardly licking his lips and tasting wet, watery cloth, Tim squirms. “Does it have to be wrapped around all of my face like that? It’s nearly 90 degrees outside! I can _feel_ the sweat roll down my back. It’s disgusting and it _tickles_.” He squirms again and Kon smirks, tugging at the waistband of Tim’s shorts.

“You can always take your clothes off,” he suggests, laughs when Tim huffs.

“ _Kon_.”

“Fine, fine, geez, I’ll just leave it on your cheeks and jaw for a few minutes.” Hovering above Tim, Kon’s palms add to the heat and press of the towel, to the press of the scent against Tim’s nose, the sudden flicker of something old and familiar, something borrowed out of the back of his mind, something blue.

Closing his eyes, he smiles. “This reminded me of something.”

“Yeah?”

“Mmm. I was ten and caught a terrible cold.”

“Dude, _that’s_ what this reminded you of? Of being sick? Oh man, what an epic fail on my part.”

“No, no.” Tim shakes his head; the towel rubs against his skin. “The memory is actually…nice? I remember that my nose was awfully stuffed and I couldn’t breathe at all one night. My parents were home at that time and my Mom sat me down, poured hot water with sea salt into a bowl, placed a towel on my head and told me to lean over the water and breathe in the steam, while she helped me keep the towel from getting wet. I was bent over that bowl over twenty minutes and she has stayed with me, talking about their newest find.” Opening his eyes, Tim followed a trail of a thin smudge that crept onto the ceiling, dropping his gaze to Kon’s face. “I have completely forgotten about it, until now.”

“Did it help? The steam thing, I mean,” Kon asks, slowly putting the towel down, folding it into a messy, floppy square.

“It did. My nose kept running for hours after that and by the end of the night it was raw red. But all I could think about was how nice and comforting her hands felt on the back of my neck and my shoulders. I almost wished I could stay sick forever.”

A corner of his mouth rising up, Tim looks up to Conner’s own, quirked up brow. “Until, you know, after two straight hours of my nose running I freaked out thinking that my brain turned to mush from the sea salt and was slowly leaking out of my head,” Tim says and Kon snorts, gives the side of Tim’s head a soft, short push, his knuckles the most of what Tim feels. 

“ _Dork_.”

“It was a legitimate concern at that time, okay?”

“Sure sure, man, who didn’t get nightmares about their brains leaking out of their nostrils when they were kids, right?” Conner grins, quickly flying backwards as Tim’s arm lifts, ready to connect. 

“You _ass_.”

“If it helps, I was scared of my eyes acting up and setting themselves on fire. Or that if I would cross my eyes I would blow a hole into my nose,” Conner admits and there’s a squeaky, hushed sound that escapes the hollow of Tim’s throat, bumps into his teeth. 

“You did _what_?” He gasps and breathes through the laugh, the near, long cough of amusement.

“Don’t judge me, leaky-brain.”

“I’m not. I’m just…”

“Updating your brain file about me?”

“Pretty much.” Tim nods, placing his palms on the plain of the chair, counting the seconds of distance passing through them, the numbers so obvious on Conner’s body, on the patterns of his skin, on the adaptation of his clothes, full where they stretch, empty where they fall. 

(And Conner, in between.) 

“Good. You do that. I’ll get the shaving cream and the razor in the meantime. _Ding_ when you complete your download.” Kon carelessly waves a hand and disappears into the bedroom, leaving Tim vacant for what are Bart’s hours but Tim’s seconds, for that rare minute it takes for Tim to settle, to decide about the weight of his mouth, the sound of his words.

(The frequency of his pulse.) 

“A restart might be needed.” is what greets Kon’s steps, the crossing of the borders of the room, accompanying all the signs of Conner’s presence, all of his hushed, quiet physicality. 

“Was that a sex joke?” he asks, palms and fingers full; full of things to be used, things to be felt, things to be lived.

(Things to be had.)

“ _Could_ be. Also: _ding_. I’m all up to date.”

“ _Dork_. Now shut up and sit still or there’s no way I’ll be able to guarantee the survival of your luscious, wonder boy face after all.”

(And after three, winded minutes of sheepish, escaping smiles and rogue lips, they’re out of time. Out of tape and – there’s nowhere to fast forward to.

Nowhere to rewind.)

There isn’t quite a way to speak about this, to picture himself as Kon’s thighs barely brush the tops of his, as he’s straddled yet there’s nothing to touch, nothing to press him as Kon’s fingertips push upwards and tighten his skin, the pressure of the razor as soft as butter, as firm and steady as Kon’s wrists are, quiet and serious, _heavy_ ; it reminds him of winter. Of cold days that hide under snow coats and ice furs, that write message through bleached, see through flowers, leave confessions across the aching windows, solemn but tranquil, waiting for the melt, for the naked trees to grow and Conner is the cold, the waiting, the bare tree. (He’ll never leave.)

He meets the tip of Tim’s chin, urges his head back until there’s no danger left in curves and bows, wiping the razor into the drying towel if it’s too coated, returning with equal, swift slides, tilting and murmuring to Tim’s consciousness, slow orders and soft execution and – it builds up in Tim.

The vague, sweet taste of the shaving cream; the fresh, clean feel of bareness; Conner’s barely there weight; the movement of his sides under Tim’s shallow grip. It drops down his shoulders and finds him underneath, climbs up above his throat, moves him, moves his mouth.

Tells Tim to bite, to kiss as Conner’s thumb grazes the center of his lips, as he’s preparing to shave the last, scented inches of foam, doesn’t quite get there when Tim licks the salty, dry fingertip, when he bites down, weak but felt, smiling as Conner jumps.

“Jesus, Rob! Don’t _bite_!” Kon yelps, fakes a frown and sternly pushes Tim’s jaw down, shaves the remains of Tim’s stubble with his thumb still between Tim’s teeth, his body dropping down on Tim’s the moment he puts the razor down, Tim’s fingers pulling at the back of his neck, already curling into his hair. 

(It’s – affection. It builds up.

It moves.)

Conner gasps, shifts across Tim’s legs as Tim rocks, tries to thrust upwards, shallowly grazing Conner’s belly with his hips and – 

“You’re – you’re _hard_. You got hard from this!” Conner blinks, a mixture of subtle disbelief, of awe rearranging the gestures of his body, the thickness of his throat. 

Tim nods, twice, rests his forehead against Kon’s. “ _Kinda_. Was that intentional?”

“Uh, not really. Wow. Strangest foreplay ever, dude.”

Leaning against the chair, Tim snorts and with a tiny, fast jerk of his head, he hints at the space they’ve been spending their time against, hints at the space they relied on. 

“There’s a couch _right_ behind us,” he says and Kon’s eyes flicker over his shoulder, then slide back to the curve of his mouth. 

“It’s a perfectly fine couch too.”

“And if you’re willing to spend an hour or two on your back, it could be a perfectly fine _bed_ ; too,” Tim offers and everything in Kon leaps, yelps, _shifts_ , all over again.

“Deal, dude. _Deal_.”


End file.
